Art and Activism Database 2013___________________________________

DATES/LOCATION: Exhibition December 12, 2013 to January 12, 2013 The exhibition will be at the Arc Studios and Gallery, www.arc-sf.com, 1246 Folsom, San Francisco, CA.

DESCRIPTION: Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art (NCWCA) www.ncwca.org is the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the national organization of Women’s Caucus for art www.nationalwca.org. In observance of the 40th anniversary of Roe vs Wade, the Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art (NCWCA) is sponsoring the juried exhibition Choice with a national call to self-identified women artists residing in the United States. Women are invited to create artwork in a broad range of media and genre that give voice to women’s reproductive rights. Women are asked to give thought to the meaning of choice. Artwork may include personal or collective experiences of women, past and present or projections about the future, the broader context of changes in reproductive rights during the artist’s lifetime and/or differences in reproductive rights in different parts of the country. Creative interpretations are encouraged. Works may be abstract, representational or incorporate language with visual representation. With respect to the United Nations issues and Human Development Index and Human Development Reports, maternal deaths and teen pregnancy are on the rise in the United Sates. The UN statistics should be concerning and alarming. Maternal deaths per 100,000 births in the US were: 1990 - 12, 2000 - 14, 2005 - 18 and 2010 - 21. Teenage pregnancies per 1000 women aged 15 - 19 were: 2000 - 50.5, 2005 - 43.1, 2008 - 35.9 and 2010 - 41.2. Choice implies giving women the ability to determine, when and how often to become pregnant and when to terminate a pregnancy. Unintended pregnancy places women at risk for poverty especially when pregnancy occurs where families are living on the economic edge or when education is impacted. Recent legislation restricting access to abortion can push early termination to later stages and places limits at the time when serious complications become evident. There is the additional fallout of closing clinics which offer other preventive health services. With the artist call still open, interpretation of the theme Choice is unknown, however, the underlying issues of maternal health, poverty, hunger, child health, violence against women, women’s leadership and participation and women’s economic empowerment are all closely tied to women’s reproductive rights. An installation of letters in planned to accompany the exhibition choice. While stories/letters have been collected at various times to tell the need for access to safe legal abortion, the mission for NCWCA as artists is to create a visual mass of letters to build community among women and those who love them. The exact numbers of women having an abortion are unknown, but given the data that is available one in three women in the United States has an abortion during her lifetime. The average number of years between onset of menstruation and menopause is 39 years. Women are stigmatized for seeking abortion and are therefore largely silent about the need for care. It is this silence that allows access for safe legal reproductive care to be legislated away and withdrawn. We have created our website and a post office box so that submission of stories/letters can be made anonymously. REFERENCES:http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/36806.htmlhttp://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/89006.htmlhttp://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-Unintended-Pregnancy-US.html

Sponsored by the Women's Caucus for Art, Philadelphia Chapter in cooperation with the Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists

EVENT DIRECTORS: Karen Love Cooler and Virginia Maksymowicz

EVENT/PROJECT TYPE: Juried Exhibition Jurors:Karen Love Cooler, artist, former Gallery Director of Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists; Exhibitions Coordinator for the Philadelphia Chapter of the Women's Caucus for Art. Virginia Maksymowicz: artist, Associate Professor of Art at Franklin & Marshall College; Treasurer for the Philadelphia Chapter of the Women's Caucus for Art

DESCRIPTION: We live in a violent world. Sandy Hook, Nickel Mines and Columbine. September 11 and Oklahoma City. Irag, Afganistan, Vietnam, Korea and two World Wars to end all war. JFK, RFK, MLK and Harvey Milk. Lisa Steinberg and JonBenet Ramsey. And the millions of others who names we've forgotten or have never known.

When is violence justified and when it is not? Are violent acts committed by ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances to be judged differently? If nature itself is inherently violent, is human nature any different?

This event seeks artworks that address these complicated questions. They might offer hope; they might scream out despair. They might be political; they might be political; they might be very personal.